Monthly Review November 2019

In this blog post I will go through the dividends I collected in November of 2019.

I will also go through changes in my portfolio.

Dividends received:

In November of 2019 I collected dividends from 8 companies and ETF's. The total amount received in net dividends was 24,17€.

Last year I collected 8,86€ in November from one companies (General Mills).

Year on year growth in net dividends for November was 172,97%.

The reason for the increase is mostly because I have opened positions in Tanger, AT&T General Dynamics, Lowe's, Caterpillar, Antero Midsteram and QDVD ETF.

List of the companies that paid me dividends:
General Mills
Tanger
AT&T
General Dynamics
Lowe's
Caterpillar
Antero Midstream
iShares MSCI USA Quality Dividend UCITS ETF (QDVD)

List of the companies that raised their dividends:
-

Buys:
Monthly investments in ETF's and Low-cost Index Funds.
Skanska AB

Projected forward annual net dividends:
591,76€

Portfolios Yield on Cost net:
3,29%

I have also updated the Dividends, Goals and Portfolio pages!

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog post.

Have a great week!

Best Regards

D.G.E.

Monthly Review October 2019

In this blog post I will go through the dividends I collected in October of 2019.

I will also go through changes in my portfolio.

Current events:

I decided that I would a chapter on my Monthly Review series if something special would occur.

In October both Sampo and Nordea announced their plans to cut their annual dividend for the next year.

For international readers who might not have heard of these two companies: Nordea is one of the leading Nordic banks and Sampo is a financial group which is Nordea's largest shareholder with a 19,87% stake.

Sampo: "Change in Sampo’s view on expected dividends. Management expects to propose to the Board a dividend of EUR 2.10 - 2.30 a share for 2019"

If the dividend is €2.10 the decrease will be about -26% since the previous dividend was €2.85 per share.

Nordea:"Our new capital policy stipulates a management buffer of 150-200 bps above the regulatory CET1 requirement and a dividend pay-out ratio of 60-70%, both starting from 2020. We will continuously assess the opportunity to use share buy-backs as a tool to distribute excess capital. For 2019, Nordea targets a dividend of EUR 0.4 per share."

If the dividend is €0.40 the decrease will be about -44% since the previous dividend was €0.69 per share.

To be clear: neither of these companies declared any dividends but gave their projections and I have updated my projected annual net dividends with these guidances.

I have experienced a couple of dividend cuts in the past. For example Skanska AB cut it's dividend this year and so did some of my other smaller Finnish OMX Helsinki positions.

In the year 2019 after Q3 the percentage of my received dividends have been Sampo 26,25% and Nordea 11,38%. More than third of my dividends I have received from these two companies.

This will obviously have an effect on my annual forward net dividends. (see graphs below)

So these future dividend cuts lead to following thoughts:

These companies will most probably cut their dividend so what do I do?

I will continue to diversify my portfolio and try to do my best to find the right companies that would distribute dividends and grow their dividends into foreseeable future.

Also, what to do if more (most certainly this will be the case in the following decades to come) dividend cuts occur in the future?

I haven't really made up my mind.
I don't have a specific Investment Strategy (at least yet) or a set of rules that would tell me what to do under specific circumstances.
Maybe selling the position and opening a new one could be a viable option.
I need to look into this and research what to do with these and future dividend cuts. It will be interesting to see what kind of rules I end up with.

What I know and have decided in the past is that I will monthly add to my ETF's and Low-cost Index Funds.

Dividends received:

In October of 2019 I collected dividends from 4 companies. The total amount received in net dividends was 8,56€.

Last year I collected 5,16€ in October from 2 companies (Neste and Altria).

Year on year growth in net dividends for October was 65,77%.

The reason for the increase is mostly because I have opened positions in Iron Mountain Inc, AT&T and Genuine Parts.
I have also added to my Altria position earlier of this year and Altria has raised it's dividend.

List of the companies that paid me dividends:
Altria
Iron Mountain Inc
AT&T Inc
Genuine Parts

List of the companies that raised their dividends:
Antero Midstream

Buys:
Monthly investments in ETF's and Low-cost Index Funds.

Projected forward annual net dividends:
579,04€

Portfolios Yield on Cost net:
3,18%

I have also updated the Dividends, Goals and Portfolio pages!

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog post.

Have a great week!

Best Regards

D.G.E.

Monthly Review September 2019

In this blog post I will go through the dividends I collected in September of 2019.

I will also go through changes in my portfolio.

Dividends received:

In September of 2019 I collected dividends from 6 companies. The total amount received in net dividends was 28,06€.

Last year I collected 5,74€ in September from one company (3M).

Year on year growth in net dividends for September was 388,81%.

The reason for the increase is mostly because I have opened positions in Walgreens Boot Alliace, T.Rowe Price, UPS, Johnson & Johnson and Archer-Daniels-Midland.
I have also added to my 3M position in May of this year.

List of the companies that paid me dividends:
3M
Walgreens Boots Alliance
T.Rowe Price
UPS
Johnson & Johnson
Archer-Daniels-Midland

List of the companies that raised their dividends:
None

Buys:
Added shares to my Altria position.
Monthly investments in ETF's and Low-cost Index Funds.

General on buys: Altria has been hit by JUUL so because of that I decided to use my cash position to add couple of shares.

Other information:
For the rest of the year I'm trying to add to my cash position but the priority is in my emergency fund. The emergency fund is about 38% full. Should be able to reach 100% come year 2020.


Projected forward annual net dividends:
621,49€

Portfolios Yield on Cost net:
3,41%

I have also updated the Dividends, Goals and Portfolio pages!

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog post.

Have a great rest of the week!

Best Regards

D.G.E.

Monthly Review August 2019

In this blog post I will go through the dividends I collected in August of 2019.

I will also go through changes in my portfolio.

Dividends received:

In August of 2019 I collected dividends from 5 companies. The total amount collected in net dividends was 17,73€.

Last year I collected 8,86€ in August. Year on year growth in net dividends for July was 100,27%.

The reason for the increase is mostly because I have opened positions in Tanger, AT&T, General Dynamics and Lowe's.

List of the companies that paid me dividends:
General Mills
Tanger
AT&T
General Dynamics
Lowe's

List of the companies that raised their dividends:
Altria

Buys:
Caterpillar
Johnson & Johnson
Genuine Parts
Archer-Daniels-Midland
Antero Midstream
Skanska AB
Monthly investments in ETF's and Low-cost Index Funds.

General on buys: The market went down a bit and I decided to use my cash position.

Other information:
For the rest of the year I'm trying to add to my cash position but the priority is in my emergency fund. The emergency fund is about 40% full. Should be able to reach 100% come year 2020.


Projected forward annual net dividends:
621,49€

Portfolios Yield on Cost net:
3,41%

I have also updated the Dividends, Goals and Portfolio pages!

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog post.

Have a great rest of the week!

Best Regards

D.G.E.


edit: typos

Monthly Review July 2019

In this blog post I will go through the dividends I collected in July of 2019.

I will also go through changes in my portfolio.

Dividends received:

In July of 2019 I collected dividends from 2 companies. The total amount collected in net dividends was 5,21€.

Last year I collected 1,74€ in July. Year on year growth in net dividends for July was 198,51%.

The reason for the increase is mostly because I opened a position Iron Mountain Inc and I also added to my Altria position. Also both of the companies had raised their dividend during the past year.

List of the companies that paid me dividends:
Altria
Iron Mountain Inc

List of the companies that raised their dividends:
Walgreens Boots Alliance

Buys:
Skanska AB

Projected forward annual net dividends:
563,89€

Portfolios Yield on Cost net:
3,22%

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog post.

Have a great weekend!

Best Regards

D.G.E.

Goals.

Background

In life it's good to have goals, at least they work for me. They drive me forward and give a sort of purpose for the everyday life.

In the current world where the lifestyle of performance orientated rat race is accelerating viciously I find that investing and wealth accumulation is the thing that keeps me going.

I invest because I want to feel safe. To feel safe about the future.

For me safety is shelter, health and the possibility for me as a individual to do my own choices if things go south.


Setting up goals

“The first $100,000 is a b*tch, but you gotta do it.”  - Charlie Munger

This quote from the legendary Charlie Munger is something that woke me up a bit.

I wrote before that I never thought I would be one of those people who will reach six figures of more.

Now I do.

I calculated how much I have invested in the past two years and came up with a monthly average.
I went through my annual incomes and costs for the past two years and came up with a figure that should be my average investment amount.

I put that figure (plus the €10,000 as principal I had invested in the past two years) in a DRIP-calculator and it gave me the a result: 7 years.

Seven years. Somehow it doesn't feel and seem to be too far away. Yes, it's about 2,555 days from now but for me its a goal:

The first: €100,000.

I will do it and it will be a b*tch, but I'm going to do it.

It seems that when Christmas come in 2026 I will have that first €100,000.

For those wondering about the Slope shape, it's less positive in the beginning because I'm saving for a cash buffer for emergencies. I want to do that first so that I can focus on investing without having to sell if certain particles hit the fan or the gearbox of my car decides to say "the end".

I will do a more detailed post about the plan later on.

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog post.

Best Regards

D.G.E.

Monthly Review June 2019

In this blog post I will go through the dividends I collected in June of 2019.

I will also go through changes in my portfolio.

Dividends received:

In June of 2019 I collected dividends from 3 companies. The total amount collected in net dividends was 14,48€.

Last year I collected 2,204€ in June.

The reason for the increase is mostly because I opened positions in Walgreens Boots Alliance and T Rowe. I also added to my 3M position.

List of the companies that paid me dividends:
3M
Walgreens Boots Alliance
T Rowe

Buys:
Lowe's

Projected forward annual net dividends:
549,7€

Portfolios Yield on Cost net:
3,23%

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog post.

Have a great summer everyone!

Best Regards

D.G.E.

My Story

I had always thought that I would not be one of those people who will reach six figures or more in capital.

I graduated 10 years ago (actually to date next week, whoa how time flies by), started working, bought an apartment and began paying mortgage.

I woke up, got to work, got home, did something (read: spent money without thinking much), went to sleep and repeat. I did this for maybe 7 years.

I remember the exact day when I really got interested in investing.

While we were on a coffee break discussion session at work one my colleagues said:

 "Well you can always buy company X's stocks for the dividend if you have spare change".

I had been one of those "Well I'll start investing some day" and "Oh yea, I should really start investing".

Well I never did. (Actually I had as a kid and had my stocks since the early 90's but forgot about it, like I described in my first post)

Later that day in the evening when I got home from work I opened up a brokerage account at Nordnet and from there on I've been investing. This was two years ago.

From being hand-to-mouth spender (I've have a good and happy life and I could've kept going and being happy no question) and not thinking much about how much things cost I have really changed my mindset.

First I started investing in the Finnish Stock Market with small amounts of capital just to get started and figuring out what investing is all about. I bought couple of stocks and I still own them, they are in my portfolio just to reminder of the beginning and how I did not know anything.

I've studied engineering so finance was or actually is something I do not know much about.

In the beginning I also started to monthly invest on Low-Cost Index Funds which I still do.

Since then I've been reading books, reading blogs and browsing Seeking Alpha and so on.

I started out with a Finnish Best Seller, a classic and a sort of "Finnish Stock Market Bible" "Miten sijoitan pörssiosakkeisiin" by Seppo Saario (rough translation How to invest in stocks). A masterpiece in my opinion.

I recently finished reading a book titled "The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy" by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko.
While reading through the book it gave me a boost and focus on my journey of investing. I'll probably write a more detailed blog post of the book later on. Had some amazing eureka moments during the process of reading this book.

Reading blogs has been helping me enormously. Dividend Hawk's , Dividend Growth Investor's and Warren Fyffet's blogs were probably the most important and fascinating to read. I have learned a lot from these blogs. Great blogs, thank you guys.

When I found out Seeking Alpha it gave me even more material to dive in. Enormous amount actually. After reading articles on Seeking Alpha I built a sort filtered mindset to question and form my own point of view of things and not automatically fully agreeing on what I was reading.
A lot's of good stuff at Seeking Alpha.

Dividend Growth Investing.

From reading and researching all of the above and much much more not mentioned I slowly formed the idea of Dividend Growth Investing and that it would suit me the best.

My goal is to generate a monthly growing dividend income stream and I plan to reinvest dividends to generate additional earnings over time.

I have experienced (and I'm sure most investors have) that it is not easy to sit on the stock and even more difficult to figure out which stocks to buy and when.

As an addition to Dividend Growth Investing I invest monthly on Low-Cost Index Funds to have diversification. I believe that in the most probable case I will not beat the Index.



I hope you enjoyed reading my blog post.

Best Regards

D.G.E.

Monthly Review May 2019

In this blog post I will go through the dividends I collected in May of 2019.

I will also go through changes in my portfolio.

Dividends received:

In May of 2019 I collected dividends from 4 companies. The total amount collected in net dividends was 19,62€.

Last year I collected  134,32€ in May.

The reason for the decrease is mostly because some of the annual dividend payments were in April this year instead of  May.

List of the companies that paid me dividends:
Huhtamaki
General Mills
Tanger
AT&T

Buys:
Skanska AB
Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc
AT&T
General Dynamics
UPS
T Rowe
Walgreens Boots Alliance

Projected forward annual net dividends:
521,17€

Portfolios Yield on Cost net:
3,31%

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog post.

Best Regards

D.G.E.

Time to start the Engine.

I've been investing since I was a kid.

I was six years old when I got my first stocks. I got them as a present from my aunt. She worked at a bank and those stocks were shares of the bank she worked for. This was in the early nineties.

When I was a kid I saved my weekly allowance, all the money I got from doing simple tasks for example at grandparents ranch, cash I got as a present and so on.

I remember going to the bank to deposit the money I had saved up and remember looking at my bankbook (I'm one of those who miss them haha, digital money you can't even smell) where it would show "deposit +500" but there would also be a line which showed "dividends +1,35". I remember asking my aunt what they were and she'd explain me and I'd be "cool", more money.

Well, I hope I had understood then that I should get more of those shares to get more dividends. Unfortunately I didn't. I forgot about and went forward.

So here I sit, after hours in my 9-to-5 office and writing the first blog post about my journey of dividend investing.

I'm going to call my blog Dividend Growth Engine and I'm going to build this Engine piece by piece.

Dividend and Portfolio Review - Q1 2019

In this blog post I will go through the dividends I collected in the first quarter of 2019 and changes in my portfolio. In the future I'm trying to summarize past months in a separate blog posts.

Dividends received:

In the first quarter of 2019 I collected dividends from seven companies. The total amount collected in dividends is 66,50€.

Last year I collected  107,46€ in Q1.

The reason for quarterly decrease is mostly because most of the Finnish companies I hold pay their dividends in Q2 instead of Q1 this year.

List of the companies that paid me dividends:
CapMan - CAPMAN
Taaleri - TAALA
Altria - MO
General Mills - GIS
3M - MMM
Iron Mountain Inc. - IRM
Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc - SKT

Dividend increases:
CapMan
Huhtamaki
Nokia Tyres
Nordea
Sampo
Taaleri
3M

Dividend decreases:
Skanska AB - SKSBF
F-Secure
Outokumpu
Pihlajalinna
SRV
Martela (cut)

Buys:
Skanska AB - SKSBF
Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc - SKT
AT&T - T

Projected forward annual dividends:
419,75€

Portfolios Yield on Cost net:
3,27%

Buy: Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc (SKT)

On Monday January 28th I bought 1 share of Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc for $22.91 per share plus commission.
The total investment is 23.49$. This if my first purchase of Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. At the time of purchase the share yields at 6.198%. With commission my YOC will be 5.959%. Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc annual dividend is $1.4. This purchase will add $0.98 to my annual net dividend income.

With this purchase my stake in Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. is now 0,25% of my portfolio.

Full Disclosure: Long SKT

Buy: AT&T Inc. (T)

On Thursday February 14th I bought 1 share of AT&T, Inc for $29.85 per share plus commission.
The total investment is $30.42. This if my first purchase of AT&T, Inc. At the time of purchase the share yields at 6.83%. With commission my YOC will be 6,706%. AT&T, Inc annual dividend is $2.04. This purchase will add $1,42 to my annual net dividend income.

With this purchase my stake in AT&T, Inc. is now 0,25% of my portfolio.

Full Disclosure: Long T